


revertendi

by Anonymous



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Brief Alcohol Use, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, blink-and-you'll-miss-it baekchen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Junmyeon has a planner; he's a planning kind of man. He uses it for grocery lists, chores, even to keep track of how much money Baekhyun owes him on boba, although he doesn’t actually entertain any hope of getting paid back. He likes knowing things.One of the things he likes knowing is how many days he has left until Sehun gets back to Seoul.
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Oh Sehun
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97
Collections: Anonymous





	revertendi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knightcleric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightcleric/gifts).



> I love you :(
> 
> _I_ would consider this completely senseless fluff, but I've been told that I don't have a very good idea of what is or isn't angst, which is why it's tagged like this LOL
> 
> Thoroughly unbeta'ed -- and this fic really refused to behave how I wanted it to, so it's a little frustrated(?) and a bit of a different style than I've done before! (also extremely cheesy. take a lactaid before consuming.)

“Hyung,” Sehun says, his voice tinny and distant through Junmyeon’s awful laptop speakers. He blinks at Junmyeon sleepily through the screen and his hair falls into his eyes, wet from a shower. “Hyung, it’s six in the morning.”

It would be sappy and gross of Junmyeon to just smile, to just watch Sehun pout and squint at him in the dark of his room as the sun rises in California. The urge sits under Junmyeon’s tongue anyway.

“Not here, it isn’t,” he says, trying for cheerful. His hands cup together around the tea he made a few minutes ago – some chamomile blend that Baekhyun insists will get his head on better. So far it hasn’t worked.

Sehun’s little tongue pokes out to wet his lips; he sniffs and scrubs his face with one thin hand, then leans his cheek on his fist, his other hand disappearing from the screen to adjust the angle. It cuts off the top of Sehun’s head now, shows a little bit more of his loose cotton bathrobe. 

“Did you need something?”

It could be the web connection, the shaded pixels, the audio tones that don’t quite match how Sehun would sound if he were here. It could be that it’s early, he’s sleepy, and when Junmyeon texted  _ are you awake sweetheart  _ and Sehun answered  _ yeah  _ he wasn’t expecting to have to answer a call. It could be the thing Junmyeon always does, which his therapist calls  _ catastrophizing  _ and Baekhyun calls  _ being Junmyeon.  _ Whatever it is, Sehun looks – bored, flat and impatient in his little California apartment, and it scrapes like fingernails down the inside of Junmyeon’s lungs.

Junmyeon smiles wide enough that his cheeks cramp and it’s a little hard to see his computer. “I guess not,” he says. “Just missed you. Making sure you don’t lose your Korean, you know.”

“I won’t. Hyung, I have a lot to do, is it okay if I go?”

It shouldn’t hurt. Sehun is in his last few months of his last year of medical school; Junmyeon knows that. Knows he’s busy. It hurts anyway, to feel Sehun slipping like water through his fingers. They’re too far. It’s been too long. (He’s met someone else.)

Junmyeon keeps smiling. It takes conscious effort not to squeeze his mug hard enough that the ceramic feels in real danger of breaking. “Of course, baby. Sorry to have called at a bad time. I love you.”

“Mm,” Sehun says, and Junmyeon sees down the loose sleeve of his robe for half a second before the call cuts out. He lets go of his tea entirely, puts his head down on his desk and tries to breathe. If he keeps his eyes closed, no tears will come out, right? That’s how it works.

It isn’t how it works. He wipes two small puddles off of the dark wood of his desk when he picks his head up and chugs the entire cup of tea; that’s probably not how you get the calming benefits. It scalds his mouth, leaves his tongue and upper lip feeling somehow raw, swollen.  _ Just like my heart,  _ he thinks, but that’s the kind of thing that Baekhyun would hit him for, so he lets the thought float past him and takes himself to bed.

☍

In the morning, he wakes up to two texts from Sehun timestamped less than two hours after their video call.  _ I love you too hyung,  _ says the first one.  _ sorry,  _ is the next. And then a third, from an hour after that:  _ happy anniversary hyung. _

The messages don’t help, not really. Junmyeon texts back a heart and a  _ happy anniversary baby _ anyway, as if they do, even though it isn’t their anniversary for him anymore.

☍

By the time Sehun’s birthday rolls around, things have gotten worse. They don’t video chat at all; Junmyeon texts him  _ happy birthday darling I love you so much  _ the moment his California-time clock ticks to midnight — Sehun texts back more than twelve hours later, a simple  _ thanks hyung, I love you too _ and Baekhyun has to confiscate Junmyeon’s phone the next evening at the noraebang to keep him from drunk-crying in Sehun’s messages.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Baekhyun insists, eyeing the soju Junmyeon is nursing like he’s thinking of confiscating that, too. “He’s busy. You know he’s busy.”

“I do.” Junmyeon is moping, he can feel it, the same as he can feel the hot red flush of the alcohol in his face and the ringing in his ears from Jongdae finishing Busker Busker. “He’s busy and he doesn’t hate me,” he says miserably into the lip of the bottle. “And he hasn’t found someone else who is much more successful and attractive than a boring middle-school teacher and he isn’t cheating on me and he isn’t going to tell me I’m ugly and boring in bed.”

“I — yes,” Baekhyun says, sounding a little overwhelmed. “All of that.” Junmyeon takes a long drink; it burns in his mouth, hot and sour.

“Right,” Junmyeon says. “I’m going to sing a Jo Sungmo now.” 

It takes some effort to get to his feet, and once up, he sways unsteadily. “You are  _ not,”  _ Baekhyun says loudly. He takes the keypad and stuffs it under his shirt, flopping onto the hard noraebang couch and wriggling a bit like a beached fish. “Ballads are banned. Completely. No ballads. They’re illegal now for anyone named Junmyeon.”

Junmyeon blinks hard. Sways. “That doesn’t seem true.”

“It is,” Jongdae chimes in from his spot, flat on his back on the floor, still holding the microphone. “It’s a new law. Very positively received.”

Junmyeon squeezes his eyes shut again, hard enough that clouds start swirling in the little bit of light that gets through his eyelids. That doesn’t seem like a law. Saying that feels like a lot of work, though, and his tongue is too thick and heavy in his mouth for much talking. Jongdae rolls onto his stomach and starts warbling the chorus to some old song that rings some bells, for some reason, but Junmyeon’s head is too thick to remember.

“What do I do if he breaks up with me?” he asks eventually. Jongdae has drifted into humming, which doesn’t help Junmyeon identify the song. He still hasn’t sat down. Should he sit down? The walls pulse strangely if he looks at them for too long. Maybe he should sit down. Baekhyun frowns, his head rolling a little on his neck. Junmyeon can practically see the gears spinning, see the  _ who?  _ forming slowly in the alcohol. So he adds, “Sehunnie,” stepping back and letting gravity drag him onto the sticky polyester couch.

“He’s not going to.” There isn’t an ounce of doubt in Baekhyun’s voice, and something warm and grateful and bitter tangles inside him. “Let him finish his exams, hyung. He’ll come back in June like he always does.”

“Yeah,” Junmyeon says. His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. He wants to go to  _ bed, _ so suddenly it’s like a wave crashing over him and forcing him down into the rocks. There are tiny weights dragging down on his eyelashes.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “Now duet Love Battery with me, or I won’t buy you ramyeon later.”

“You wouldn’t buy it anyway,” Jongdae says into the carpet, and Baekhyun kicks him in the leg.

☍

The next time they talk – really talk, video chat open and running for more than five minutes – it’s the beginning of May, and Sehun is crying. Sehun has called him out of the blue in the middle of the afternoon; Junmyeon is just sitting at his kitchen table, a plate of half-eaten dollar-store kimbap next to the essays he still has to finish reading for his students. 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Sehun says, and when the video comes into focus and Junmyeon can see the slick of tear tracks on his cheeks, even grainy from six thousand miles away, it feels like his heart stops. 

“No, baby, no, there’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says, frantic, barely thinking, barely breathing. Everything else falls away, abruptly unimportant. The only thing that matters is the little choked noise Sehun tries to muffle into the collar of his T-shirt; the way his hands, long and pale and thin, scrub angrily at his face, leaving it red.

“I don’t – I don’t know–” and it takes too many breaths for Sehun to get those words out, and Junmyeon’s chest hurts like he’s been punched. “Hyung.”  _ What don’t you know,  _ Junmyeon wants to ask. Doesn't want to know.

“You're okay,” he tries. Sehun buries his face in his hands. “Sehun-ah. Sehun, sweetheart.”

Wherever Sehun is, it isn’t his apartment; Junmyeon doesn’t recognize the books on the bookshelves behind, nor the cracking paint on the windowsill, nor the dark silhouette of a fan palm cast through the window. There’s a tall stack of books next to Sehun, too, another open in front of him, pages and pages of highlighted printouts spread underneath everything. It’s all in English. Just looking at it makes Junmyeon’s head hurt.

“What time is it, baby?” 

Sehun shakes his head: he doesn’t know, or doesn’t think it matters. It’s – if Junmyeon’s eating dinner it’s, what, two in the morning? Sehun’s hair is sticking up every which way, but as if he’s been pulling it, running his hands through it for hours, not like he’s just woken up. The need to gather him up and hold him settles densely in Junmyeon’s arms like a tangible weight. He can’t reach through the screen: he can’t kiss Sehun’s forehead, can’t wrap him up in the softest blanket he owns and put him to bed with a stomach full of warm stew. The distance between them rings huge and hurting.

Junmyeon winds up stroking his laptop like he would Sehun’s hair, if he could. It’s stupid – feels stupid –  _ is  _ stupid – but the need to  _ help  _ throbs in Junmyeon’s palms, and he can’t stop himself. “Shh,” he whispers, helpless.

Minutes of soft hushing, humming the ballad that's been stuck in his head all day, murmuring gently whenever he can think blindly of something to say, and Sehun emerges from his hands. Whatever demon holds Junmyeon makes him look at the clock; he’s going to be late for cram school. It twists anxiously, but he won’t, can’t leave Sehun alone. Not until Sehun wants to be left. The students can manage for a few minutes to themselves.

“Sorry, hyung,” Sehun says again. His voice is scratchy from crying, his eyes red and bloodshot. He won’t look at Junmyeon. His gaze sticks to his own fingers, where he fiddles with the corner of one of his big textbooks until it can no longer lay flat. Junmyeon wants to hold his hands, press kisses to the knuckles. “Just. Have been stressed.” He forces a tiny smile; it doesn’t reach his eyes and reads more like a grimace.

“Wish I could help,” Junmyeon says, and if it feels a little too honest, a little larger than just right now, Junmyeon hopes Sehun doesn’t notice. 

He’s too far. They're too far from each other.

“You’re almost done,” Junmyeon says. “Just – just another month, love, and your exams, and you'll be done, you’ll be done.” It feels somehow selfish to say  _ you can come home,  _ even as it's true. There’s an implication to that; an assumption that Sehun still considers Junmyeon his home, even as distant as they’ve been lately, and Junmyeon isn’t sure. This call, maybe it’s just because Sehun knew he’d answer.

So he doesn’t say anything about home. Lets the words burn in his chest. Says instead, “You can make it, sweetheart,” because it goes against everything in him to look at Sehun without an endearment on his lips, and doesn't say,  _ I wish I could kiss you right now.  _

It’s five minutes past the start of cram school by the time Junmyeon lets Sehun hang up on him, and he still has to get to campus, but he has a hard time feeling truly bad about being late. Sehun scrubs at his eyes again, more tiredness than tears; he switched the call from his laptop to his phone and let Junmyeon walk with him from the fourth floor of the library, where he'd been studying, down to his car. What Junmyeon can see of the parking lot over Sehun’s shoulder is completely empty.

"Text me when you get home," he says firmly. "Get some food and go to  _ bed."  _

"Yes, hyung," Sehun says, almost smiling. His car beeps as he unlocks it, and then Junmyeon's screen goes black.

☍

(Junmyeon’s supervisor watches him disapprovingly over the edges of her glasses when he walks in, nearly twenty minutes late. He gets a text from Sehun just after, though, a sweet little  _ good night hyung  _ and blue heart emoji, so he doesn't really care.)

☍

Junmyeon has a planner; he's a planning kind of man. He uses it for grocery lists, chores, even to keep track of how much money Baekhyun owes him on boba, although he doesn’t entertain any hope of getting paid back. He likes knowing things. One of the things he likes knowing is how many days he has left until Sehun gets back to Seoul.

Sehun never tells him when he gets out of school; Junmyeon, feeling somehow, sneakily guilty, checks his academic calendar online to figure out when to buy the airline ticket, since Sehun is already enough in debt from medical school loans and Junmyeon has a job that lets him buy things when he wants them. If it’s an invasion of privacy — and it isn’t, right, that's why the calendar is online — Sehun’s never said anything. He just expects Junmyeon to email him the ticketing information and never asks him how he knows.

This year, he does the same. The website says the last day of exams is May twenty-third, so he books for the twenty-fifth — splurges a little, even, and gets Sehun into first class just because he can.

It’s normal. It feels good. He marks down the cost in his checkbook, checks it off in his planner, and moves on; Sehun will get back like always, even though he almost never answers Junmyeon’s emails about it.

He does this time, though.

_ Hi, hyung _ , it starts. 

_ Thank you for buying this ticket. But I won’t need it this year, and I’d rather you not waste your money. Please get a refund if you can. _

_ Thanks again. _

_ Sent from my iPhone _

  
  


That’s it, then.

☍

He stops reaching out first. Sehun doesn’t seem to notice. Sehun certainly doesn’t reach out to him. Selfishly, pitifully: Junmyeon is too afraid to hear  _ it’s over  _ to ask Sehun what he meant. Or — no, what he meant was perhaps obvious enough, so. Why he meant it.

“Wallowing doesn’t look good on you,” Baekhyun says, but he must see something in Junmyeon’s face, because he drops the subject and doesn’t bring it up again.

☍

On May twenty-first, Baekhyun calls him at eight-thirty in the goddamn morning, on his goddamn day off, for no goddamn reason.

“How do you feel about candles, hyung?” he says as soon as Junmyeon picks up. His eyes aren’t even open yet. His bed is very warm and very comfortable and Junmyeon has no desire to leave it before noon.

“Mmf,” he says.

“Perfect!” Baekhyun is never this chipper this early. Baekhyun is not a morning person. It’s possible that Baekhyun just hasn’t slept – although not likely. Probably. If Junmyeon were more awake, maybe he’d care. “There’s a candle-making class this morning at a shop near my house. I think we should make candles. How about making candles, hyung?”

The skin around Junmyeon’s eyes feels soft and swollen with sleep; the sheets settle so warmly around him, his little white-noise maker whirs gently in the corner, and the morning light through his curtains is blue-tinged and languorous. He could just. Rest.

“I’m outside your apartment already,” Baekhyun chirps brightly. Junmyeon hangs up.

☌

“You know my birthday isn’t until tomorrow, right?” Junmyeon asks. He slams the door on Baekhyun’s shitty little coupe, which has rust eating through the passenger side rocker panel but towards which he generally feels more charitable than he does this morning. Baekhyun sips delicately on his iced macchiato.

“But the candle class is today, so.”

Junmyeon hums noncommittally and takes a drink of his own coffee. Baekhyun’s is one of only a few cars in the lot; the others cluster in the sparse shade offered by the trees at the other end. The candle shop – small, painted white brick, a big hand-made sign hanging out front – is still dark inside.

Baekhyun makes no move to herd Junmyeon into the store – instead, he half-sits on the back bumper of his car, tapping away at his phone with one hand and holding the straw of his coffee up to his mouth with the other. Junmyeon shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, drinks his coffee, tucks his hand into his khakis’ pocket. Watches the infrequent cars trundle past on the main road.

“Are we not – going in?” he ventures after a few moments. Baekhyun looks up, seeming almost surprised at the question and slurping noisily at his straw.

“Not yet,” Baekhyun says. He scuffs his shoe against the asphalt and looks back down at his phone. Junmyeon’s mouth flattens into a line; another car pulls into the lot and rolls evenly to where the others are, over near the shade. It’s supposed to be sunny today, too – all these drivers have sense except for Baekhyun. As per usual.

“Is the shop even open?” He’s trying not to get irritated, carefully boxing that feeling into a neat little corner away from his voice. But it’s his  _ day off.  _ Jongdae works Baekhyun’s weird hours; Jongdae  _ lives  _ with Baekhyun. Surely they could have made candles together.

“Hm?” Baekhyun stands and shoves his phone back into the pocket of his too-tight jeans, slinging an arm over Junmyeon’s shoulder and pressing his warm little nose right into Junmyeon’s cheek. He jerks, which must be the reaction Baekhyun wanted, because he snorts out a laugh and drags Junmyeon closer. “It doesn’t open for another hour,” he whispers, and then  _ licks Junmyeon’s face. _

Junmyeon squawks unintelligibly; his elbow lands somewhere in the region of Baekhyun’s sternum, which he  _ deserves _ – it doesn’t get him off, though. Baekhyun’s other arm comes up to wrap around Junmyeon’s front as he laughs, high and loud, and they stumble together towards the curb.

“Am I interrupting something?”

At first, Junmyeon thinks he’s imagining it: he’s finally broken, somehow, his mind in bits, because that sounds like– he turns, and he  _ knows  _ he’s imagining it.

Sehun stands there with his hands in the pockets of a light windbreaker, smiling a little, his eyes squinted against the sun. He looks tired; dark circles like thumbprints under his eyes, a few more lines in his forehead than Junmyeon remembered from last summer. Junmyeon – he wouldn’t imagine Sehun like this, though. He’d imagine him content. Untroubled.

His mouth drops open a little, but no words come out.

Baekhyun hooks his head around too when Junmyeon freezes. Briefly there is a fear: if he doesn’t react, if he asks Junmyeon what he’s looking at – oh, please, please. He can’t be having a break. He has work on Monday.

Baekhyun crows in delight, though, swinging away from Junmyeon to wrap Sehun in a firm, tumbled hug, and whatever relief Junmyeon feels shifts too quickly into confusion. Sehun – said he wasn’t coming back. Sehun has exams. Sehun hasn’t been  _ talking _ to him.

“Hello,” he says faintly. Sehun has started awkwardly patting Baekhyun on the back; Junmyeon drinks some more coffee, feeling oddly desperate.

“Hi,” Sehun says. He smiles at Junmyeon, the biggest and brightest that Junmyeon has seen in months. It soothes, somehow, a balm to a burn he didn’t know he’d had, even as it aches. Junmyeon’s body can’t seem to decide if it wants to move closer or farther away, and something flickers in Sehun’s eyes.

“Are you surprised, hyung?” Baekhyun shouts; maybe he’s sensed the tension, maybe he’s just Baekhyun, but he takes the few steps to grab at Junmyeon’s arm and drag him closer. There’s a scattering of acne along Sehun’s jaw, and his lips are chapped. Junmyeon feels nearly hysteric. “We wanted to surprise you! Sehunnie’s back early!”

_ How, _ Junmyeon could ask.  _ But your exams, but your apartment, but your friends.  _ He doesn’t say any of that – instead he says, “I’m surprised,” a little wobbly.

“Happy early birthday, hyung,” Sehun says. He steps closer to Junmyeon. He’s so  _ tall,  _ so much taller than Junmyeon can ever remember, and his hand is big and warm on Junmyeon’s shoulder. Junmyeon’s heartbeat throbs, throbs, throbs, a perfect echo of Sehun’s beating in his palm. “Sorry spring term was so awful. I was trying to finish early and get home, and it went, ah, over my head, a bit.”

“It’s fine,” Junmyeon says. He thinks he’s smiling; isn’t really sure. His hands fist in Sehun’s shirt, and he wants to tug him down, to  _ kiss  _ him, but he– 

Sehun does it for him. His mouth is still chapped, and it catches almost painfully on Junmyeon’s skin, but it is also warm and soft and perfect, and when Junmyeon slides one hand up to cradle the back of Sehun’s head, they fit the same way they always have. 

“Do you want to get married?” Sehun says, breathing the words into Junmyeon’s mouth like a gift.

And Baekhyun might have gotten it all on tape, but he’s a liar if he says Junmyeon cries.

**Author's Note:**

> revertendi :: from Latin "anima revertendi," meaning "intention to return"
> 
> \--
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! thank you for reading ♡


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